10 Years Ago Today, We All Learned To Hate Tom Brady

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Tuck Rule Game — the screwy
AFC playoff game that catalyzed the New England dynasty and
turned the Patriots into the insufferable cheaters that they are
today.

A decade later, the game is still as baffling as it was on that
snowy night in Foxborough, when the ball squirted out of Tom
Brady's grip and seemingly brought New England's miracle season
to an end. Only to have it revived in the form of a little-known,
nonsensical rule.

Here's a brief recap of how it went down: The
Pats were losing to the Raiders 13-10 with less than two minutes
left when Tom Brady was sacked and fumbled. But somehow the
fumble wasn't a fumble. It was an incomplete pass because Brady
hadn't fully tucked the ball back into his body after pump
faking.

The Pats drove down the field, tied the game, and won it 16-13 in
overtime.

Two weeks later, the underdog Patriots beat the Greatest Show On
Turf in the Super Bowl, and today, ten years later, they're
the odds-on favorite to win it all.

It could have been different for Tom Brady.

The unheralded sixth-round pick could have lost to the Raiders in
Foxborough Stadium 10 years ago. He could have spent the next
year locked in a quarterback controversy with the legendary Drew
Bledsoe. He could have, after years of uncertainty, left Boston
to prove himself elsewhere.

And what the New England Patriots have since morphed
into — a dominant, dispassionate dynasty — could have never
formed.

But instead the Patriots won their first Super Bowl of the '00s,
rickety old Foxborough Stadium was torn down in lieu of glitzy
new Gillette Stadium, and Brady became a
model-dating Hall of Famer that any self-respecting non-Patriots
fan despises.

Correction!

We originally said it was the AFC Championship game. It was
actually a divisional round game. Apologies.